Muzzled Dissonance
by WildeNick
Summary: Nick's failed attempt to join a pack when he was a kit left him forever scarred and is now threatening his ability to attend the police academy. He was alone the first time he had to confront it, but now with Judy at his side, can he overcome his fears and become the fox he so desperately wants to be?


"What are you doing with that?" Nick asked in tense alarm as he froze mid-step, just inside the entryway. His wide emerald eyes stared at Judy's desk and his dark tipped ears were as straight up as they would go.

It was movie night again, and it had been Judy's turn to host. Her apartment, and one needed to be generous to call it that, was hardly larger than the bed it contained, but movie night didn't require much; the two pillow chairs on the mattress, some popcorn, and the small flat-screen on her desk were more than enough to get the job done. With such a small space, and so few requirements, it was easy to notice anything extra, and it was exactly something _extra_ that now commanded Nick's attention.

"Does it make you nervous?" Judy asked from her reclined position in the bed.

"I think that depends on what you're planning to do with it, Fluff" Nick said with an anxiety he utterly failed to hide. He still had not taken his eyes away from the object.

"Why don't you come sit down?" Judy patted the space next to her.

Nick's body slowly came out of its rigor, and he cautiously made his way to her, taking a path that might keep him furthest from the thing on the desk. He didn't dare to break his gaze from it even as he climbed up onto the bed.

"Are you ok, Nick?" Judy asked quietly as she placed a paw on his arm.

Nick's head turned to look at her, but his eyes lagged behind until their point of interest was out of the range his head position would allow.

"Yeah, fine" he said just a little too loudly, "You want me to put the movie on?" He had his sly grin on under his attentive ears, but his wide open eyes betrayed the façade.

"We're not watching a movie tonight." Judy said with a quiet seriousness as she petted him once across his arm.

"We're not?" Nick's voice had pitched confusion in it as he tried to keep up the grin that didn't match his eyes.

"You start at the academy in two weeks, right?" Judy asked. She had a calm tone and gentle smile that starkly contrasted the frantic struggle of Nick's pretend one.

"What's that got to do with movie night?" He swallowed hard as he awaited her response.

"We're going to start training tonight, so we can make sure you are prepared for it." Judy stayed calm and even as she spoke.

Nick, arguing for his life, responded "I've been training for two months now, Carrots. We go on runs all the time, and lift, and I'm even getting better at sparing. I'm pretty sure we've been preparing this whole time."

"There are other things you need to be prepared for too." She said firmly as she petted his arm again.

Nick swallowed again and looked back to the source of his apprehension on the desk.

"No. No. No." He said quickly as he pulled his arm away from her. She knew the anger in his voice to be a feigned cover-up for something else. "I'm not doing that."

His arm was now recoiled across his chest and she reached out to touch it once more. "Nick?" She tried to reestablish his attention on her. When he didn't, she tried again more forcefully and combined it with a squeeze of her paw on his arm, "Nick! Look at me!"

It was a struggle to again break his gaze from it, but he managed to get his eyes back on hers.

"Did you really think that you were going to make it through your whole time at academy, and your whole career as a cop without ever using a _muzzle_?"

Nick failed to suppress a small wince as she used the word.

"Yeah, sure." He said with false confidence. Even on his best day, his walls were glass to her, and today was not his best day.

"Really Nick?" She drooped her eyes and ears in disapproval at the lie. "That's what you're going with?"

Nick tried to smile and let out a quick chuckle as he shook his head, "Uh-huh, yup."

Judy let go of his arm again and hopped off the bed. She walked to the desk and grabbed the offending device. She jumped back up and took a position cross legged in front of him so they could look at each other. Nick regarded her warily.

"Who do you think they are going to use at the academy when you and the other cadets practice arrest techniques?" She interrogated the wide eyed, muzzle gaping fox in front of her.

"I dunno, criminals?" He said with a hope they both knew to be false.

"They use the other cadets you dummy." Judy said in sly jab at his fake answer.

Even the false hope drained from his eyes but he still let out another nervous laugh in an attempt to compensate.

"The other cadets are going to use _you_ to train on, and since _you_ are a predator, _muzzling_ is part of the arrest process."

Nick winced again at the word and tried another dishonest chuckle.

"You are going to have your paws cuffed behind your back and someone is going to put a muzzle on you, again and again." Judy spoke with a steel as icy as the cuffs she was talking about. "Is that something you would be ready for?"

Nick regained some of the composure in his face and with a near genuine show of confidence crossed his arms across his chest and said, "Yep, I am. One-hundred percent."

"AHHWOUCH!" Nick yelled as he contracted his body and moved his right paw to protect the part of his left arm that Judy had just punched full force. He rubbed it as imitation hurt and real pain ran over his face.

"If you're going to lie to me, at least have the decency to not use the same ones twice." Judy gave him a disapproving scowl.

"It wasn't a lie the first time." Nick gowned out.

He quickly put his paws up in defense as she wound up for another hit, "Ok! I was kidding, jeeze."

Judy frowned at him in more displeasure and he tried to crack a grin to break the tension she was forcing. She relented and eased her expression. She leaned forward and rubbed the paw of the arm she had just savaged.

"Nick, I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you're going to need to confront this sooner or later." She stopped the rubbing and moved her paw under his to hold it. "You are my friend, you are going to be my partner, and I am going to help you through this." Her warm smile melted some of the bravado he was forging.

"Judy, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I…"

Judy cut him off, "Nick, it's just us, you don't need to be so defensive." She squeezed his paw in reassurance.

Nick rolled his eyes sarcastically and gestured his head towards the wall, "Just us…And the boy's over there."

"Hey! We're always quiet on movie night!" Came a shout through the wall.

"Shut up Bucky!" Judy yelled back.

Nick looked back at her with a sly told-you-so look in his eyes.

Judy huffed at being caught in her own lie, even if it was unintentional. She squeezed his paw even tighter and used her other to offer the muzzle to him. "Just put it on, and I'll stop worrying about it."

Nick not only didn't reach out to accept it, he locked up entirely.

While Judy's hearing was genetically tuned to ignore the beating of her own heart, it had no problem tuning in on the sound of the much stronger fox-beat in front of her. It also had no problem identifying its rapidly increasing tempo.

"Would it be easier if I put it on you myself?" She asked in a soft, comforting tone.

Nick let go of her paw and rolled fast and hard to fall out of the bed. He got back on his feet and looked up at her, this time with an anger that was more authentic. "This is dumb. I-I came here to watch a movie. If you don't want to do that, fine. I-I'll just go home."

He was too far away for her ears to pick up on his heartbeat again, but she could easily see that his breathing was much faster than resting rate. She saw him squint his eyes shut in frustration. He groaned, then turned and walked out the door.

"Nick!" She called out in franticly as he slammed it closed behind him.

She left the muzzle on the bed and ran out into the hall after him.

"Nick!" She called out again. He didn't respond as he continued walking briskly to the stairs. She ran after him.

She caught up to him on landing between her floor and the next one down, and got in front of him to block his path.

"I'm not in the mood tonight Carrots." He grumbled in frustration as he looked up at the ceiling.

She reached out to grab his paw again and in a soft and soothing tone said, "Nick, I know that you don't like letting mammals see that things get to you. But I'm your friend, and I already know. Let me be there for you. Let me help you so that you don't have to worry about anyone else seeing you like this."

"Look, I don't need your help. I'll be fine on my own. Y-you just surprised me with it." His tone switched from defense to offence as more of his fear channeled into anger, and he pulled his paw away from her as he continued on with words tainted by spite, "Why the hell would you do something like that anyways? Did you think that was funny? Who does that?"

Judy reciprocated his anger with some of her own, "Are you going to do this at the academy Nick? Are you gonna' just run and hide from this forever? They won't let you! Then they are all going to see the thing you want to hide the most!"

Nick scowled back at her. "Maybe I don't want to be a cop then." He growled out.

Judy's ears instantly drooped in response to the hurt that the statement inflicted. "You don't mean that." She said in soft desperation.

Nick didn't respond. He stepped around her and continued his journey down the steps.

"You don't meant that!" She yelled down after him as she tried to hold back the tears that were coming on fast.

…

Judy burrowed into her pile of stuffed rabbits as she cried softly into her bed. She had once again failed to help her best friend and had caused enough pain for him to walk out on her for a second time.

It had only been a few minutes but she had still been so focused on her mistakes that she missed the first knock at the door. She only noticed it the second time because it was accompanied by the sound of her name.

"Judy?" Nick said gently through the door.

She tried to collect herself and made her way to the door. Before she made it, Nick tried a third knock.

"Judy? I'm sorry…"

She opened the door to see a gloomy fox.

He bent down to the sniffling rabbit and spoke with a tender sincerity, "Judy, I'm sorry I said that, I didn't mean it. I know you were just trying to help and...obviously it looks like I need it." He opened his arms up wide with his apology.

She took a step towards him to return the embrace. Through her continual sniffling she thumped his shoulder weakly and said, "You're a real jerk, you know that?"

Nick laughed, "Yeah, I know" and he squeezed her tighter.

He let go so they could look at each other. "You're right that I need to get over this, but for tonight, can we just watch the movie?"

Judy nodded her head in a teary eyed yes.

…

Judy's bed was far larger than her small frame needed and after the movie, Nick took up his customary position of curling up at the foot of it, and they both fell asleep.

…

The next morning it was decided that Nick's place might be a better venue for them to try again. He sat in the bed that was more familiar to him with his back against the wall and his eyes were shut tight while his ears were flat to the sides.

"Nick, you really need to open your eyes for this" Judy huffed at him.

Nick cautiously opened one of his eyes to see a frowning rabbit standing on his bed next to him. "Do I have to?" He asked in a quiet but hopeful voice.

"I really don't think it will be a good idea for you to open your eyes and suddenly see it without knowing how it got there."

"Well, _I_ really don't think it will be a good idea in general." Nick's mimicry of her sentence structure was part of a desperate bid to inject humor into the situation and was for his benefit alone.

Judy grabbed his snout with both her paws and directed his face to look at hers. The act had caught him off guard and he now looked at her with wide eyed surprise.

"Keep them open." She commanded.

He meekly nodded his head and she let go of his face. She looked down to the muzzle beside her and picked it up.

"I am just going to put it next to your face and we'll see how that goes, ok?"

Nick nodded again and she lifted up the steel-wired cage closer to his head. His eyes were deadlocked on it as it neared. He slowly tried to turn his head away but was denied as Judy put a paw on the other side of his snout to thwart its escape. When her paw made contact, his eyes darted to hers for a second and she could see the fear and misery they were filling with.

"It's ok Nick, I'm right here." She said to reassure him.

His eyes went back to the approaching restraint. A sense of growing horror clutched at him as the base of it made contact with his cheek as his eyes, struggling to maintain focus on something so near to them, regarded the object as though it was primed to consume his flesh at even the slightest provocation.

Judy slowly pressed it in to make full contact along the length of Nick's snout. His breathing and heart rate had been increasing steadily this whole time, but as the two muzzles sat perfectly parallel with each other, his panting became quite heavy.

"How do you feel?" Judy asked as she used her left paw to keep pressure on the furry muzzle, while her right paw kept pressure on the steel one.

Nick's eyes were still locked on the thing pressed against his snout. While he was gasping for air now, his breathing and heart rate had seemed to have hit their peak. "Like - I - hate - you." he whispered out between pants.

Judy knew it to be a bad joke, his mind's last ditch effort to cope with the alarm it was bathed in. She used the paw that was holding his face to gently rub her opposable over the top of his nose. "Touching," she said with gentle sarcasm, "What else?"

The gentle movement on his snout calmed him ever so slightly and he between gasps he managed to say, "Danger… Like I'm in…danger... Like I should…run away."

Judy's high empathy started mirroring Nick's anguish and she struggled to push on. "But you know you're not really in danger though, right?"

If she had not had her paws in direct contact with his face, she would have missed the faint nod completely.

"Good." She kept rubbing the top of his snout, but she also kept up the pressure of the metallic muzzle against his. "Now you told me that you have always been able to choose how you feel about something. If you know that you are not in real danger, you can choose to not feel anxious about this too. Ok?"

She felt another slight nod. They sat there for several minutes as Nick breathed heavily and his heart raced. Eventually these began to slow and after a very long twelve minutes, they fell back down to a near normal rhythm. When the panic released him, his eyes broke their unyielding contact with the muzzle to look back at Judy.

"Now how do you feel?" She asked in with an eager interest.

"Stupid." Nick said flatly.

She smiled at him. "Do you still feel scared or nervous?"

"No." He said with an embarrassment he couldn't to hide.

Judy pulled her paws and the wire-frame away from Nick's face. She could see that his expression was full of frustration with himself. She threw the muzzle on the floor, out of sight, and reached out to hug him.

She drew herself back to look at him again and she could see that the process had really tired him out. Reassuringly she said, "You did a good job, Nick."

"I didn't do anything, I just sat there and trembled like a newborn kit." His frustration was turning into anger at himself.

He folded his arms and gave a menacing look at the wall. She reached out and grabbed one of his paws to force his posture back open and redirect his attention to her.

"Nick, you did do something, you faced your fear, and you didn't let it control you. That is a _big step_." She smiled at him in genuine excitement for his accomplishment.

"I guess." He said unconvinced as he looked down at his lap.

"You can't be so hard on yourself." She said as she rubbed his paw in hers.

"Besides," she continued with a renewed excitement in her voice, "I still have tickets to the finals today." She finished with a wide smile on her face.

Nick looked up and smiled back at her. He put his paw to his chin and skewed his ears. His face contorted into mock contemplation as he spoke, "Now if I remember correctly, I do think _I_ paid for those tickets."

"Yeah, but they are in _my_ purse, and possession is nine-tenths of the law Cadet Wilde."

…

"How do you feel about yesterday?" Judy asked Nick. They were sitting on his couch facing each other.

"Still stupid." Nick rolled his eyes at her.

She reached out to the coffee table and grabbed the muzzle. "How do you feel about today?"

"Well now I feel scared _and_ stupid. Thanks Doctor Hopps…" He gowned out and looked away from her.

Judy huffed at him but pushed on anyways, "But do you feel as scared as you did yesterday?"

Nick was still looking at the nothing in particular that was across the room from them. "I-I don't think so, I don't know. Maybe."

Judy could see his tension mounting. "What are you thinking about right now?"

… _trust a predator without a muzzle?.._ "Nothing," he lied "I'm thinking about nothing." He took a deep breath and tried to force his mind to make that lie true.

Judy reached out to hold his paw again. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

Nick looked back at her and snarled, "No, you already know what happened. I-I don't want to talk about it and-and, c-can you just please put that thing away already?!"

He quickly stood up from the couch and strode to the kitchen. Leaning against the countertop with his elbows, his paws massaged his temples as he took deep steady breaths in an effort to calm himself.

Judy went to him and put her paw on his back. "It's ok Nick."

"No-no it's not. It's not ok." He pulled away from the counter and looked at her, "I'm never allowed to keep things that make me happy. Someone always takes it away, _every_ _time_. And it's never enough to just take it from me, they had to put a muzzle on me too?! _Every_ time Judy! I always lose it in the end!"

His fear and frustration grew as long buried memories and emotions forced their way to the surface. "My dad, the scouts, a thousand other things; I even lost you like a day after we met! It's not an irrational fear, it's the truth. It just happens over and over and over again. _Every_ time! You think I'm gonna' be a cop? I want nothing more! But as soon as I get it, someone will take it away from me! It happens _every_ _time_ Judy! And that muzzle doesn't just remind me that I lose all the things that make me happy, it reminds me that sometimes I get punished for even having them in the first place."

The pained frustration of his life was all over his face.

Judy looked at him with her own sadness. The reminder of what she did to him pained her deeply, but he wasn't wrong, it happened just like he said. She tried to recover herself and not dwell on the accurate accusation; this wasn't supposed to be about her, this was about being there for him and arguing a point that he wasn't wrong about, wasn't going to solve anything.

Nick could fast talk his way out of nearly any situation and she had learned quite a lot from watching him these past few months; she decided to give those skills a try now.

She formed small sly grin and in the cutest inquisitive voice she could muster said, "So... I make you happy then?"

Nick tried and failed to keep up his grave expression. His ears relaxed as he put his paw on his face and sighed. "Only when you're not trying to muzzle me." His relented tone betrayed to Judy that she had succeeded in breaking his despair.

"Nick, I know that you're scared and I'm not going to tell you you're wrong to be; no one knows what the future holds, but if you really think this is all just temporary, don't you want to enjoy it now? If you think it's all going to be taken away anyways, why let that ruin it _now_?"

"Probably because I'm a dumb fox." He smiled down at her and she stepped forward to give him hug.

"Why don't we train on a different skill today?" He suggested.

"What did you have in mind?" She asked in a voice muffled by his chest.

"I think a little run would be nice."

"Oh. I was thinking of a sparring session, but I guess we could just do both!"

Judy couldn't see it, but Nick's ears drooped and his eyes went wide as he thought about how far away Cypress Grove was from the ZPD.

…

While Nick held the object in his own paws, he reminisced on the last few days. Judy had been right, his fear of muzzles was a problem that needed to be fixed, and soon. He had always known that this topic was one of the few things his mind had never properly learned to control, but acknowledging that, along with all his other personal shortcomings, was something that was buried most of the time.

It was so obvious now that she'd said it, that he was going to be interacting with muzzles on a daily basis as a cop, and it made sense he'd have one placed on him at some point during his training. His cognitive dissonance was apparently even more powerful than he'd realized. It was an utterly novel sensation to have someone around that cared enough to set him straight, and, even if he hated the methods, he was more glad to have it than he could express to her in words.

"Are you ready?" She asked while patently watching Nick hold the muzzle like it was a cobra.

"Just… Give me a sec, will ya?" Nick snipped back at her.

"Nick I am not trying to rush you, but you are going psych yourself out by staring at it like that. I am right here with you." She put her paw over the muzzle he was holding and to break his line of sight. He looked at her with his anxiety saturated eyes. "You know that logically you are going to be fine, right?" He nodded. "Then just do it." She was calm but firm and she moved her paw away.

Nick raised it up slightly and turned it to _look down the barrel_ of the thing. Judy had taken the straps off so that it was just the metal part. The goal was to get him to put it on his face, but in a way that wouldn't leave him feeling trapped.

He closed his eyes and raised it up. First the tip of his nose entered. He couldn't actually see it with his eyes closed and it wasn't actually touching any part of his snout, but he was sure he could feel a pressure coming off the _thing_. Along with the psychosomatic pressure, came the much more real emotional pressure. He was already amped up with a sense of danger but his instincts now redlined to tell him he was some serious mortal peril. His breath quickened again and his paws started to shake. The shaking caused the edge of the rim to bump his nose.

He jerked his head back to look at the ceiling as he gasped for air. "I can't do it!" He pleaded out in a mix of agony caused by both the muzzle and his failure.

Judy pulled the muzzle out of his paws and stood up. She put it on the table behind her and walked up to stand next to the sitting fox.

"Nick?" she put her paw on his shoulder in an attempt to reacquire his attention.

"Damnit! I'm so stupid!" He yelled, still looking at the ceiling. He wiped his watering eyes with the back of his paw and looked back down at her. "What's wrong with me?"

She rubbed his shoulder and tried not to let her face echo his emotions. Judy wasn't anywhere near as good as Nick was at hiding her feelings, but she did the best she could.

"Do you trust me?" she asked gently.

Nick nearly had his breath back and looked her in the eye, "You know I do, Judy." He gave a weak smile and she knew his answer to be completely genuine.

"Lie down and let me do it for you, ok?"

Nick squeezed his eyes shut for a few second and then groaned before sliding down on the couch.

She went to grab the muzzle again and walked up beside him. She grabbed his right paw with her right paw and moved them both to rest on the center of his chest.

They looked into each other's eyes as she spoke softly to him. "Do you remember last time how it was bad, but then it got better?"

He nodded.

"I am going to be right here with you the whole time," She squeezed his paw, "But you have to do it until it gets better."

He nodded, but his eyes were filling with dread again.

"Are you ready?" He nodded again but this time shut his eyes tight.

"Nick, you need to keep your eyes open." She said softly. Then with a little scandal in her voice added, "You can look at me if you have too." She smiled and got a tense grin from him as he accepted the offer.

She braced herself to resist the emotional reflection that her empathy was sure to pick up from him. Slowly she moved the muzzle over his face.

The paw she was holding his with on his chest, gave her a lot of information about how he was feeling at any given time. She could feel his chest rising and falling, his heart beating, and most of all, how much he needed her support based on how tightly he was squeezing her back. As the steel muzzle was centered above his furry one, she felt all those metrics rise rapidly.

"It will get better, I promise." She said as she slowly began to lower it. All Nick's vitals began to climb swiftly and she could feel him start to shake. His eyes were locked on hers and registered pure terror. She returned it with as much tender kindness and loving friendship as she could assemble. She stopped at various intervals to wait for his panic to level out before continuing on.

After about two minutes of very slow movements, the base of the muzzle reached the base of his. As it made contact, he was shaking quite a bit and his gasping pants and pattering heart belonged to a marathon sprinter. He let out a few pained whimpers as he blinked water from the narrow eyes he still had locked onto hers.

Nick's mind howled for him to run. It begged him to move, it pleaded that he was in danger from a fate far worse than death. He was so used to being able to suppress emotion, to choose when to feel, but nothing he tried was effective. It was all he could do to stay still and not disappoint the violet eyes he tried desperately to lose himself in.

Judy wanted to speak out to comfort him, but didn't want to break any important thought processes he might be going though. While her left paw inflicted agony and torment by holding down the muzzle, she used her right paw to provide comfort and support.

Judy had caught a look at the clock on the other side of the room before the process started. As he started to come down from his anxiety, she snuck another look to see that it had only been seven minutes; he came down significantly faster this time.

He spoke from inside the muzzle as his grip relaxed on her paw. "I-I, think it's over" he said breathlessly.

"How do you feel?"

"Tired… And still dumb." His said with an attempted note of joviality in his voice.

"You're not dumb Nick." She squeezed his paw. "You did great again. You came out of it a lot faster than last time."

Nick rolled his eyes and said sardonically, "Woo, go me."

"I want to try something, ok?" Judy asked with a little bit hopeful cheer in her voice.

Nick looked at her in puzzlement trying to figure out what fresh horror she had in store for him this time.

"Don't move." She said.

She lifted the muzzle and could see and feel the tension falling out of him as his eyes and ears relaxed. When she neared the tip of his nose, she slowly put it back down to touch his red furred face once more. He closed his eyes and squeezed her paw, but for the most part, the physical signs of his anxiety did not return.

"Alight" She said with calm excitement, as she removed the muzzle completely this time and put it behind her back. "Are you good now?"

Nick shook his head, "Yeah, yeah I think I am." He sat up on the couch and moved his paws to fluff up the fur around his face.

"Good. You still want to go to the winery tonight?" She asked with eagerness.

"You want me to pay again, don't you?" He groaned in somber resignation to the answer he knew was coming.

"It's your turn isn't it?" she said cheerily.

"Wasn't it my turn last time?" He cocked his eyebrow at her.

"Oh, so you are learning then." She said with a smile that triggered one in him.

…

Judy dug around in her bag as Nick watched her from the couch. He still wasn't a particular fan of what they were doing, but it did seem to be working. Seeing twice now how the anxiety had stopped all on its own did reinforce his trust in Judy and his belief that this could all be fixed someday. He did hope that day would be soon though; orientation was in nine days.

He had known to avoid muzzles like the plague all his life, but he hadn't ever realized just how nervous they really made him. If Judy hadn't pressed the issue…he shuddered to think what would have happened to him at the academy without her intervention.

As he continued to watch her root around in her bag he realized just how right she was about enjoying things now while he still had them. No one had cared about him like she did in a very long time and he was certain he had never cared about anyone this much ever.

"If you're trying to get to the neighbors, it would just be easier to take the stairs you know." Nick jibed the rabbit that had been burrowing in her bag for well over a minute now.

"I found it!" She came back up with triumph on her face and a lighter held up high.

"Trying alternative medicine this time?" Nick asked playfully.

Judy looked at him incredulously and held up a light blue candle in her other paw.

"Is there a problem officer?" Nick said slyly as he brought his arm up to his nose and sniffed it deeply. "No, no there is not." He gave her his coy smile.

She raised her eyebrow and lit the candle. "You get pretty _musky_ during these sessions, Nick. I can't even get it out of my fur."

Nick laughed at her, "Well it's your fault I get so riled up."

Judy was waving the lit candle around the area of the couch in a vain attempt to excise the scent. "Well I've got to try something Nick. Mammals at work are going to start asking questions if I keep showing up covered in your scent."

Nick laughed again and said, "Don't worry Fluff, I don't think anyone is going to guess that you secretly tie up masochist foxes and make them cry every night."

She scowled at him as she brought the candle closer and waved it around him.

He gently caught her paw in his, and guided it towards the table. "Ok there forest-fire, let's just put that down for now. It's really not going to do anything anyways, trust me."

"It's not?" she asked as her ears drooped in disappointment.

"Nah, foxes are pretty _persistent_." He said as inhaled deeply and gave a good full body stretch across the couch. "I'll give you some of my shampoo before you leave, that will get most of it out for you."

"Alright." She relented and put down the candle.

Nick realized that maybe he should have just kept _his_ muzzle shut and let her continue to sage the room because she was now getting _her_ muzzle from the bag. She found it and walked back to stand in front of him.

"How are we feeling about it today?" she queried him.

Nick squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath before opening them again. "I really just want to get it over with at this point." He said with a frustrated sigh.

"That's actually a really good sign." She smiled at him encouragingly as she put a paw on his. "Let's get it over with then."

He shook his head and tried to relax himself before the storm hit again.

"It has the strap this time, are you ok with that?" She asked as she held it up to show him.

He closed his eyes again, but not tightly, and efforted to keep his breathing steady. He could feel the straps on his fur already, over his head and around his cheeks. Tightening his closed eyes, he managed to force out words that he knew he wouldn't have to wait long to regret, "C-can, can you put it on f-for me again?"

"Whatever you need Nick." She said comfortingly. "Lean your back on the arm and I'll come up behind your head, ok?"

He shook his head, eyes still closed with tucked down ears, and began to rotate into position. He leaned his head back over the arm and ventured to open his eyes again. His best friend's upside down face was there to greet him.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

He nodded his head that he was.

The positioning just wasn't going to work this time for her to hold his paw, but that was something he needed to be weaned off of anyways. She concentrated her ears on his heart and moved the muzzle over his face.

His pulse increased but not as much as it had before. She adjusted the straps so that one came to rest on either side of his face and one on his forehead, between his ears. Contact with the Kevlar bands sliding across his fur increased his fright as she slowly lowered the steel cage.

Nick's mind was in panic mode again. It wasn't exactly like before, but he had the sinking suspicion that it was going to get a lot worse when the straps were being tightened. In fact, his fear of that was actually distracting him from being scared now. He couldn't decide if that was a good or a bad thing as the majority of his focus was on forcing his body to not knock down his torturer and run out the door.

Judy was just a little too far behind him for his eyes to find hers and the only refuge they could acquire was her paw as it continued to lower the restraint on him. But as the base of it found the fur on his face, the paw disappeared. The slowly building tide in his mind began to rush forward as he knew what was going to happen next.

He felt the pressure of the side straps being pulled down and the wave crashed into him. He felt his claws penetrate the sofa cushions as he gripped them for dear life in an effort to hold the rest of him still. "No!" the word was a desperate whine that he struggled to get out. "Please don't!" He begged.

The pressure stopped building on the straps but the torment running through his mind continued increasing anyways. He closed his eyes again while he frantically gulped air that brought no relief. He started to feel himself getting light headed from the hyperventilation. As his conscious thought began to alter under the strain of the inadequate respiration, he heard her voice call out to him.

"Nick! I'm right here! You're not alone!"

And with the suddenness of turning out a light, the buildup stopped. His breathing began to slow back down and he opened his eyes to find hers, standing over him once more.

He gasped out through still ragged breaths, "I…know."

She smiled at him and his anxiety, while it had quite a long way to go, began to drain away rapidly. She was right, he wasn't alone anymore.

He blinked the water that had been building up out of his eyes and took a deep shaky breath, then exhaled it slowly. "Just finish it." He said as calmly as he could.

Judy wanted to stop to hug him and tell him how proud she was, but she knew they were not finished yet. She continued her work on the two side straps and then brought around the head strap.

With the muzzle now secure she walked around to stand next to him. Nick had slowly been releasing his death grip on the sofa cushions and with his paws now free, he began to sit up. He was still shaking, but it was more of an after effect and it wasn't actively getting worse.

"Are you ok Nick?" Judy asked quietly as she reached out to hold his paw; there was fluff from the cushions still stuck to his claws. Looking into his face, past the steel muzzle and Kevlar bindings, she could see that while most of dread had left his eyes; it had been replaced with weariness that she knew was unrelated to his physical exhaustion.

"Come here Carrots." He said as he used the paw she was holding to direct her to sit next to him.

She accepted and nestled into his arm. He took a few more minutes to collect himself before looking down at her.

"Are you ok?" Judy asked again.

Nick squeezed her a little tighter, "No. But it isn't because of the muzzle." He sighed. He put the paw that wasn't around her on his lap and opened it pad up. She took it, and that gave him the resolve to push forward.

With a deep breath he began slowly, "Judy, I've been alone and miserable my whole life. These last few months have meant more to me than you could know. I am not scared of the muzzle Judy, I'm scared I'm going to lose everything that's happened, and I'm scared I'm going to lose you."

Judy let go of his paw and leaned in to give him a hug that nearly knocked him over. "I promise I will always be there for you Nick." She said into his fur.

He returned her embrace and they remained tightly entangled for a very long moment.

…

The next evening, Nick put the muzzle on all by himself, with no incident at all. As a special treat, they had another movie night, and he wore it the whole time. He still didn't like the feel of it, but it was a muzzle, no one _liked_ it, but his feelings towards it were now a lot closer to what one might consider a _reasonable_ level.

The night after that, Judy cuffed him and, after only a few mischievous comments from Nick and a single outburst from Pronx, she'd managed to muzzle him too. He nearly enjoyed it that time as he had insisted that she feed him popcorn through the grate. He _accidently_ licked her digits every time, causing her to excitedly scream with surprise each time he did so.

She'd broken him in less than a week and they'd spent the next doing quick draw techniques as they spared. While each session inevitably ended with his paws behind his back and steel strapped to his face, his only anxiety came from the savagely creative taunts she whispered in his ears each time she finished.

…

Nick lay curled up at the foot of her bed again tonight. He was leaving for the academy tomorrow and he would only be allowed one night away from the barracks per month, for the next six. In an effort to make up for the time that would be lost, they had watched so many movies tonight, that it was actually early morning now. He had to get on a train in less than five hours, but there was no way he could possibly fall asleep before then, and he let his sharp night vision continue to watch over the quietly snoozing bunny above him, while he contemplated this new life he had.

He had gone through more changes in the last six months than most mammals did in a lifetime. After he'd met her and then almost immediately lost her, he'd realized just how empty and meaningless his life really was. It had broken him, and he had done things during that time that he still wasn't proud of and still wasn't sure he could ever tell her about. But three months later, she'd come back to find him; to _rescue_ him.

During the three months since, she'd filled a void in his soul so large, he was sure it hadn't even existed prior to knowing her. During the six months ahead, the academy would take care of filling his life with the meaning that he was missing too. Then he would be complete.

His shiver was slight, but enough to shake the bed, and he cursed himself as the bunny at the head of it stirred. She murmured in her gentle breathing and then lay still once more. He relaxed as he tracked down the source of his chill.

The problem was, they hadn't actually quelled his fear of the muzzle at all, because that was never what he was scared of in the first place. Everything he'd ever lost in his life was completely trivial compared to what he had now, and it seemed that it was only going to get better from here.

He was dangling from the edge of a cliff that was only racing higher, and every second gave him that much further to fall. If life had punished him so badly for having such petty happiness before, what it would do to him this time was unimaginable.

She was right though, he couldn't let that get in the way of _now_. He would enjoy to its fullest extent, every second he had left with her. He would cherish every precious instant as though it was his last, and never take any of it for granted. He would try, and likely fail, to give her even a fraction of bliss she gave him. She had no idea how much he needed her, and no idea what he'd be willing to do for her.

As he continued to watch her sleep, he was certain he would never let anything get in the way of him enjoying this new life again. But just because something wasn't in the way, didn't mean it wasn't still present. Deep down, he still _knew_ this would all be taken away from him someday, and the dreadful thought of how far he would fall when it was all gone, was now, and always would be, completely and utterly, **terrifying**.

.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.

Special thanks to eng050599 for helping edit this!


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